


Chez Romy

by NotQuiteHydePark



Category: Excalibur (Comic), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Cats, Domestic Fluff, F/F, F/M, Moving In Together, Moving Out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:34:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23287120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotQuiteHydePark/pseuds/NotQuiteHydePark
Summary: "You’ve got six hours to move all our stuff to the island or Gambit ain’t bringing de cats."
Relationships: Kitty Pryde/Illyana Rasputin, Remy LeBeau/Rogue
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38





	Chez Romy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Glowbug](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glowbug/gifts).



“Gambit not leaving his cats behind, cheri. No way,” Remy says to Rogue, sitting down on a cardboard box and looking across the apartment. The kitchen alone takes up this box and eight more, though the rest of the place is pretty bare: luxury bedding, Rogue’s wardrobe, a zip-up bag (the kind made for business suits) that’s nothing but slacks and trenchcoats. Two suitcases full of bath soaps, towels, conditioners and other intimate items. A golf bag for extra fighting staves. And, of course, five cat carriers. No cats are in the carriers. 

"De cats love dis place. Look at dat swishy brush tail dere. Gambit can't just take dem away just like dat." But his voice suggests some willingness to negotiate. At least that's what Rogue thinks-- and nobody knows him better than she does.

“Sugar, we can’t just keep going through the Central Park gate twice a day for team meetings. Didn’t we agree on this bit way back when we moved in together?” Rogue’s sounding sweet, but she means it. The agreement was that they would stay in Gambit’s New York place—full of light, with a lovely kitchen and a Manhattan view, purchased with money Gambit found who knows where—until the X-Men needed them elsewhere, and then they would keep a pied-a-terre but make their primary residence somewhere else.

Now somewhere else meant Krakoa, where the beaches and tropical flora reminded Rogue, in a good way, of winters at Gulfport, but the lack of pet care threw Gambit for a loop. 

Maybe just half a loop. “You got responsibilities to de team, cheri. And I go where you go. Forever and always. But Gambit gonna miss dis place. And I’m the homme who got to move de cats.” Okra, a new addition—a Maine coon cat with green-flecked eyes—ambles over to Gambit and licks his hand.

Rogue feels wanted—needed—on Krakoa. These past few days of extra-strength commuting she’s felt secure in Gambit’s arms, but also like she’s phoning it in on the island, where she might be needed soon. “Remy. Will you agree to set up our bedroom on the island if I can get all our stuff there without you? You can just focus on our kitties. Deal?” She flips her hair and pops bubble gum. She could get as old as Destiny and she’ll still pop gum. And Gambit loves it.

“Deal,” Remy says. Then, just for fun, “Six hours. You’ve got six hours to move all our stuff to the island or Gambit ain’t bringing de cats.” They smooch—smooching, without protective gear, still feels new and thrilling, they’ve waited so long—and when they finally separate Rogue starts thinking.

Who can make this happen? She picks up her phone and starts texting.

“I’m sorry, I’ve got to stay on the moon tonight,” says Jean. “Logan’s hosting a barbecue. Yes, a barbecue. Yes, Logan. No, not his claw. I’m ashamed of you. No, not really. I can try, if you use your phone, but at this distance—“

A box of shoes rises and slaps against the ceiling fan, then shoots sideways and almost smashes a window.

“I’m sorry. I don’t have the accuracy. I appreciate the urgency. Why don’t you try Kurt? He’s been sitting on mountains and brooding. I bet he’d be happy with something specific to do.”

Ten minutes, two gates and five bamfs later there’s a cloud of sulfurous smoke and a very friendly, very fuzzy mutant in Gambit’s kitchen. And he’s panting, and his sharp teeth are showing, and he’s shrugging, and he looks sad. “I could do this move for you, liebchen,” Nightcrawler says, bowing. “But so many jumps with so many boxes in so little time—it wouldn’t be safe. I’d exhaust myself. I’d be no use for days. If it were a menace to Earth, or to mutantkind—“

Rogue gestures to visible cats: Okra’s gone but Chet’s jumped up on a wingback chair and is mewling for treats.

“I love cats too, but I’m sorry. This situation is not a mutant emergency. I’m not even teleporting back to Central Park now. Your gallant former acrobat and ethics expert has to call a Lyft.” Rogue notices that Kurt’s breathing has changed; he’s really tried to see whether he can do it, and when he says he can't he means it. He can’t. Or at least, he shouldn’t.

The next time Rogue uses her phone it goes to voice mail: rapidfire French, followed by English. Something about the Canadian Olympic Committee, and only if strictly necessary, and a laugh—Kyle’s laugh—at the end before the beep.

She picks up her cell phone, reluctantly, again, starts dialing and then thinks better of it and tries another number.

“You have reached the good ship Marauder. What’s up?” Rogue can hear the sea wind behind Kate, slapping and flapping the flag, rolling up the deck.

“Kate? I’ve got—Remy and I have got—an urgent problem.” Rogue explains herself, as fast as she can.

Kate wrinkles her nose at Lockheed, about to spit into the sea—Rogue wants help moving to Krakoa, from the one mutant on Earth who can’t live there?—and then realizes exactly what Rogue is asking. It’s for love. It’s for cats. It’s something only Kate can accomplish, and only if Kate acts now.

Kate picks up her own phone and, rather than dialing, draws a tiny sigil, as her best friend once taught her to do.

Half an hour later a slightly annoyed and extremely powerful woman with straight blond bangs and leather armor is standing in Rogue and Gambit’s kitchen holding a mug with a teabag but no tea.

“You do understand,” Illyana says, “that there’s a small chance your belongings will end up twelve years in the future, or on an uninhabited and mostly underwater Krakoa ten years in the past.”

“I’ll take that risk for my sweetie,” Rogue says. “And for his cats.”

Gambit nods so hard Illyana can see his facial buttress moves back and forth. 

“You’re on,” Magik says. “But I’m only doing it because Kate asked.”

“She doing her best for all of us, huh.” Remy glances at Magik, at the dry mug with the tea bag, at Okra, who has somehow jumped on top of the refrigerator while pushing a bag of cat treats onto the floor, and at the metal teakettle, which isn’t plugged into anything, nor is it near an outlet. Remy touches the kettle, very gentle, and it heats up without exploding, then discharges its energy into the water inside, which boils immediately.

Illyana pours herself a full mug of black tea. “Have you got everything together, then?”

Rogue nods. “One stack for the kitchen goods, one for the bedrooms, and one more for the furniture.”

“And de cat furniture.” Gambit smiles.

“Hang on.” Illyana puts her mug down and a great golden disc engulfs her and a stack of boxes.

Then she comes back and does it again. 

Once more, and she yawns and drains her now no longer boiling hot tea.

Then even the cat furniture is—so Rogue understands—safe in place on Krakoa, in their brand new bungalow. Rogue has been thinking of calling it Chez Romy.

“Hon?” she asks. “Sugar?”

Gambit returns with a tiny orange thing on his shoulder, tail wrapped around the pink elbow of his spring-weight trenchcoat. He looks around and sees that there’s nothing in the flat now except the built-in appliances, the cat carriers, the pair of married mutants and the cats. “Gambit as good as his word.”

One week later they’re canoodling, watching the sunset, nibbling crepes, taking pencils in hand to draw, first one, then another path across the not very much explored middle of the new island. “I got a feeling sometimes, sugar, that all this is gonna go bad sooner or later. It’s just too good to be true for long.”

“Gambit understand,” Remy says, and smooches Rogue’s forehead. “We gotta take our bonne chance when we get it, though. And we’re here, and you’re mine.”

“Parfait,” Rogue says, lightly mocking Gambit’s accent. “Speaking of which, don’t we have parfait glasses somewhere? For ice cream? The kids are coming over soon.” By “kids” she means Rahne and Cessily and Roxy. 

Gambit stands up and pulls at the wirework porch door, then comes back out with a box still unopened. He pulls at the flaps until a tongue of flame pops out, singeing his nose.

Three orange Limbo-creatures like scorpions with human heads, each the size of a shoe, pop out, one carrying a parfait glass in its oversized stinger-tail, another spitting a trail of acid before it runs off into the palms, the moss, the Krakoan night. Grasses and flowers turn to ash as they pass.

“Gambit won’t lie,” Remy says. “Gambit not gonna recommend the Illyana Rasputin Moving Company unless it be an emergency.” A grey cat sidles up to Rogue’s boots and ankles, tests them with his whiskers, moves over to Gambit. “But under de circumstances, Gambit very glad you called.”


End file.
